Onco Actu du 7 février 2019

	1. BIOLOGIE
100 cancer organoid models developed by Sanger Institute scientists [Sanger Institute] The 100 organoids are derived from the tumours of patients with colorectal, oesophageal and pancreatic cancer. Available to researchers worldwide, they will enable studies into cancer development and biology, as well as drug discovery.
Sticking together helps cancer to spread [Nature] When cancer spreads, this metastatic stage of the disease is usually lethal. An analysis of immune cells that cluster with tumour cells in the bloodstream illuminates a partnership that might aid metastasis.
	2.6 ETIOLOGIE - ENVIRONNEMENT
Return of French farmer's case keeps Monsanto in legal spotlight [Reuters] Monsanto, acquired by Bayer last year, is also facing lawsuits in the United States over alleged cancer links to glyphosate-based weedkillers. Lasso used a different active substance to glyphosate.
AAAS website oversteps data in herbicide effects [Genetic Literacy Project] The names of the awardees seemed strangely familiar. Then it hit me: this was the 2014 paper where they looked at hard water consumption in Sri Lanka and then suggested a tie between heavy metals and maybe glyphosate. The paper presented a hypothesis. There were no data. There were no experiments.
AAAS Runs Dishonest Glyphosate Story, Then Deletes It. Is Politics To Blame? [ACSH] There's really no nice way to put this. The AAAS has severely damaged its own reputation. This was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. What on Earth were they thinking? We can only speculate, but it's difficult to avoid wondering if the organization's relatively new CEO has something to do with it.
	2.7 ETIOLOGIE - OBÉSITÉ
A Bellwether Study On Excess Body Weights Sends A Warning: Young Adults Have Increased Rates of Cancer [Dr. Len] I would emphasize here that the absolute risk of these cancers in young people are very small, however the point of this data was something far more important: these rising numbers are loud in their impact.
	4. DÉPISTAGE, DIAGNOSTIC ET PRONOSTIC
Draft Recommendation Statement Pancreatic Cancer: Screening [USPTF] The USPSTF recommends against screening for pancreatic cancer in asymptomatic adults.
Doctors debate whether to stop calling low-risk tumors 'cancer' [Reuters] Esserman argues that given how widely tumors vary, both in form and severity, it is ethically unsound to frighten patients by telling them they have cancer when in fact they don’t have a risky prognosis. But Dr. Murali Varma, writing in the same issue of The BMJ in a counterpoint to Esserman, argues that renaming certain cancers is likely to be confusing and proposes education as a better way forward.
	4.2 DÉP., DIAG. & PRONO. - GÉNOME
23andMe Responds: Empowering Consumers [NY Times] The genetic testing company rebuts an editorial’s criticisms of its health test.
	4.9 DÉP., DIAG. & PRONO. - SEIN
With self-compression, women suffer less and mammogram quality not at all [Reuters] “Our study did not report any decrease in image quality when self-compression was performed,” said lead study author Dr. Philippe Henrot of the Institut de Cancerologie de Lorraine Alexis Vautrin in Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy.
	5. TRAITEMENTS
Cancer treatment at home is safe, effective, and closer to happening than you think [STAT] As we wrote recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, cancer care at home could yield equal or higher-quality cancer care and greater patient satisfaction at lower cost than traditional care in a hospital or physician’s office.
Examining the Impact of Real-World Evidence on Medical Product Development [National Academies of Science] Evidence generated from real-world use, such as real-world evidence (RWE) may provide valuable information, alongside RCTs, to inform medical product decision making. To explore the potential for using RWE in medical product decision making, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine planned a three-part workshop series.
	5.1 TRAITEMENTS - PRÉ-CLINIQUE
Discovery may bolster chemotherapy potency while protecting the heart from side-effects [University of Alberta] By stabilizing a specific metabolic protein called pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2)—also preferentially oxidized in the heart—with a drug compound, the researchers completely prevented heart damage from the chemotherapy, and enhanced the potency of the chemotherapy against lung tumours in preclinical mouse models.
Brain Tumor 'Pied Piper' Device Gains Breakthrough Status [Duke University] Dubbed the Tumor Monorail, the device mimics the physical properties of the brain’s white matter to entice aggressive tumors to migrate toward the exterior of the brain, where the migrating cells can be collected and removed. The purpose of the device is not to destroy the tumor, but to halt its lethal spread, making the disease more of a condition to manage than a death sentence.
	5.10 TRAITEMENTS - ESSAIS
MacroGenics breast cancer drug tops Herceptin in late-stage trial [Biopharma Dive] The results suggest margetuximab could be an option for patients who may be close to exhausting other therapies. All the patients in the study had previously been treated with Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Perjeta (pertuzumab), and about 90% had received Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumab emtansine) as well. All three drugs are sold by Roche.
MacroGenics touts a PhIII win in a head-to-head with best-seller Herceptin — shares rocket higher [EndPoints] We don’t know yet how those numbers translate to months of added PFS, or the overall survival rate. Researchers are still pondering OS.
MacroGenics Announces Positive Results from Pivotal Phase 3 SOPHIA Study of Margetuximab [MacroGenics] Margetuximab improved progression-free survival (PFS) compared to HERCEPTIN® (trastuzumab), when used in combination with chemotherapy in patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer.
	5.12 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES
Immunotherapy for rare skin cancer inspires optimism [University of Washington] Fifty patients with advanced Merkel cell carcinoma were enrolled in the (not randomized) trial. After receiving pembrolizumab, 28 saw their cancers shrink or even disappear — an unusually high rate of response for a solid-tumor cancer.
Curbing Production of Immune Checkpoint Protein Slows Liver Cancer in Mice [NCI] Researchers have found an unconventional way to unleash the immune system against liver cancer in mice. Rather than directly blocking the activity of an immune checkpoint protein that shields tumors from the immune system, the researchers used an investigational drug to curb production of the protein.
Power of cancer immunotherapy expanded by improved antigen presentation [University of Chicago] “Our data show that loss of YTHDF1 in dendritic cells attenuates antigen degradation and leads to improved cross-presentation and better cross-priming of CD8 + T cells.”
	5.12.2 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES - CAR-T, THÉRAPIES CELLULAIRES
Novartis and Gilead’s multiple myeloma CARs diverge [Vantage] As Gilead bows out of BCMA, Novartis pins its hopes on a BCMA/CD19 combo.
	5.2 PHARMA
Hal Barron’s GSK team continues to cull respiratory drugs in big shift to oncology R&D [EndPoints] Barron has been outspoken about shifting the focus in R&D to oncology, where he is pushing to make a comeback several years after the former executive team at GSK swapped out its commercial oncology portfolio to Novartis in exchange for a batch of vaccines.
	6. LUTTE CONTRE LES CANCERS
'Watchful waiting' is best approach for most ovarian cysts, study finds [The Telegraph] The new research followed nearly 2,000 women as they were scanned in the years after a benign cyst diagnosis. Overall, in 80 per cent of cases the cyst resolved or did not need intervention, the study found. Twenty per cent of cysts disappeared entirely, while 16 per cent of cases underwent surgery. In total, 12 women were subsequently diagnosed with ovarian cancer - suggesting a risk of 0.4 per cent.
	6.10.1 POLITIQUES (USA)
House Expands Russia Inquiry as Pelosi Declares Democrats Will Not Be Cowed [NY Times] Ms. Pelosi also took a dig at Mr. Trump’s plan, detailed on Tuesday, to invest $500 million over 10 years toward the development of new cures for childhood cancer, characterizing it as paltry. “Five hundred million dollars over 10 years — are you kidding me?” she said.
	6.2 IMPLANTS MAMMAIRES
Statement from Binita Ashar, M.D., of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health on agency’s continuing efforts to educate patients on known risk of lymphoma from breast implants [FDA] As of September 2018, the agency has received a total of 660 total medical device reports regarding BIA-ALCL cases in the U.S. since 2010. Of the 660 MDRs, our in-depth analysis suggests that there are 457 unique cases of BIA-ALCL, including 9 patient deaths.
	6.6 PUBLICATIONS
We need to talk about systematic fraud [Nature] I’m not alone in my suspicions that dubiously produced papers are getting published. Informatician Cyril Labbé at Grenoble Alps University in France and I have developed a tool, Seek & Blastn, to identify such papers on the basis of wrongly identified nucleotide sequences. So far, our work has uncovered dozens of papers and resulted in 17 retractions, with several investigations pending.
Thousands of scientists run up against Elsevier’s paywall [Nature] Researchers at German institutions that have let their Elsevier subscriptions lapse while negotiating a new deal are hitting the paywall for the publisher’s most recent articles around 10,000 times a day, according to Elsevier — which publishes more than 400,000 papers each year.
	6.7.2 APPLIS
Slack telegraphs moves into healthcare as it gears up for IPO: report [Fierce Biotech] If it dives into the healthcare space, Slack will go up against offerings such as the clinic-focused startup Stitch—with its HIPAA-compliant messaging channels organized around individual patients—as well as Microsoft’s Teams app, which began adding features such as secure care coordination, image annotation and electronic health record integration last year.